Genre: Novella, Fantasy
Rating: A-
The third novella in George R.R. Martin's Tales of Dunk and Egg "The Mystery Knight" reunites us with Ser Dunk and Prince Egg, and of course Egg's boot. In this story, Dunk and Egg are headed north when they are sidetracked by a wedding feast, and tourney, in honour of the marriage of Lord Ambrose Butterwell and a daughter of Lord Frey. Things are not all what they seem at the tourney, however, and there is a lot of talk of the Blackfyre Rebellion.
I think the thing that I like most about "The Mystery Knight" was that it divulged more into the history of Westeros while also making it part of the present. There's the whole cliché that history repeats, and here Martin proves just how true that is. I like the way that Dunk's life has drastically changed since he met Egg, and I also really like how, despite being a Martin creation, he's a very likeable character. He isn't exactly the brightest and he certainly isn't the best jouster - both facts which he is well aware of. He's almost like a Stark in that you really can't help but root for him, no matter how many times his actions lead him into trouble. In contrast, there's Egg who while being likeable is far more arrogant than his counterpart. You learn a lot more about Westeros from the mouth of Egg than you do from the thoughts of Dunk, but half the time his mouth opens you can't help but cringe and hope that Dunk clouts him. Especially when he's mentioning his boot, which the contents of have caused as much trouble as relief.
My favourite part of this story was the fact that Dunk finally got to see the consequences for some of his previous actions, notably those in "The Hedge Knight." The consequences of that first story are huge, as is Dunk, and it's nice to see that people haven't forgotten him. Likewise, it's nice to see consequences to Egg's arrogance. I'm not exactly sure that Egg's learned from his actions, but a lot of "The Mystery Knight" was showing the reader just what would happen if Egg's identity ever became common knowledge. Even when he does pull out his boot things don't exactly go the way that he expects, although once again I'm not sure if Egg realizes as much yet. Once again, I'm looking forward to the next installation in this series.
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